Explore the Amazing The Cu Chi Tunnels

They may not be your family tunnels, but a very complex network of tunnels which served as hospitals, living quarters, communication and provide routes, as well as storage areas for the weapons and food in the Viet Cong guerrillas. These folks were constructed without using any sophisticated machines or tools only crude tools and human resilience. The Viet Cong guerrillas began building them throughout their resistant against the French inside the late 1940s. Its original purpose was for communication between villages without getting detected by the French army. In 1960, however, Vietnam's National Liberation Front began excavating and increasing the tunnels. The tunnel system was very strategic adding to the victory with the North Vietnamese Army contrary to the Americans.

Many of these secret tunnels were built underneath American bases. Its importance wasn't only limited to military purposes but additionally became the hub from the Vietnamese community life since the Americans burned and destroyed villages. Everything proceeded normally for the Vietnamese during these tunnels where lovers met, couples get married to, children visited school, and performances were held.

All has not been normal, obviously. The Vietnamese was required to face the contests of just living in cramped quarters where ants, scorpions, vermin, and poisonous centipedes thrive. In addition to that, they have to ration everything because food, water, and also air were scarce. Usually, they merely got out of your tunnels at night to scavenge anything that can be useful for the city whether were supplies or food. When the Americans bombed and infiltrate villages, they'd to stay during these claustrophobic quarters for the purpose looked like endless days. Those living conditions made sickness, especially malaria, rampant. The truth is, it is the 2nd major reason for death among the Vietnamese during that time. In addition to that, most of the tunnel inhabitants had serious cases of intestinal parasites.

As the Cu Chi tunnels was actually a haven to the Vietnamese, it has been a method to obtain frustration for that Americans. That they tried various methods of detection and infiltration that have been all a failure. The American troops conducted large operations burning villages, bulldozing jungles, and destroying rice paddies. They deployed planes which sprayed chemicals to defoliate the areas burning it afterwards. Through every one of these offensive attacks, the Vietnamese guerrillas, combined with the other villages, remained safe and secured inside their tunnels. Regardless of this, only 6,000 Vietnamese in the original 16,000 tunnel inhabitants had the ability to survive following the war.